Centralised Servicing (Bomber Command)

(In part from Wynn’s RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces official history) I have Centralised Servicing applied to Vulcan 2 wef 3/63, Victor 2, 3/64, NEAF Canberra, end-66-mid-68.

There might be some confusion here. It’s a long time ago so I might be in error here.

The old system was for squadrons to have their own Aircrew,aeroplanes and their own ground crew who did all the servicing on the squadron dispersal, Major servicing or heavier rectification was done in the squadron hangar.

With Centralised Servicing the squadrons had only Aircrew and Admin office personnel. The aircrews were allotted aircraft as required by Operations Wing and the aircraft were looked after by the station First Line Servicing Sqn. based on the former Sqn dispersal’s. any heavy servicing s such as a Major and Heavy rectification went to the 2nd Line servicing at the Centralised Aircraft Servicing Flt hangars.

In 1969 in Malta 13 and 39 had separate dispersal’s ,Aircrew and ground crew and Major work went to ASF as did the Shackleton’s of 203.

John

I may have misinformed you in my earlier post; here’s the text from the article, which is perhaps slightly different from what I recalled earlier. Apologies if that is the case!

“This flight took place after the Canberra had already entered RAF service a day that was noted by NAM’s former Restoration Co-ordinator David Leggatt, who added the following recollection to the museum’s Archive several years ago.

“In 1951 I was a young erk serving at RAF Binbrook, my first operational station. I worked as part of a team in the Aircraft Servicing Flight servicing Avro Lincolns. In this era aircraft were serviced under a system called ‘Planned Servicing’. Each operation was detailed and timed and progress was checked hourly. A very tight working environment!……”

Thanks for the feedback which confirms my understanding that centralised servicing was introduced (in some form) in the 1950’s.

However, when No 35 Squadron reformed in 1962 it had its own aircraft, suggesting that at sometime between 1956 and 1962, squadron servicing was reintroduced. It wasn’t until 1964 that the station’s aircraft were pooled and serviced centrally.

Regards

Pete

I compiled an article about the Canberra coming into RAF service in the early 1950s (Aircaft Illustrated cica 2010) and one of the interviewees cited the start of central servicing as being part of the change from Lincolns to Canberras. I hope this helps.